There is something about the desperado-nature that is wholly unaccountable--at least it looks unaccountable. It is this. The true desperado is gifted with splendid courage, and yet he will take the most infamous advantage of his enemy; armed and free, he will stand up before a host and fight until he is shot all to pieces, and yet when he is under the gallows and helpless he will cry and plead like a child. Words are cheap, and it is easy to call Slade a coward (all executed men who do not “die game” are promptly called cowards by unreflecting people), and when we read of Slade that he “had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers, and lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand under the fatal beam,” the disgraceful word suggests itself in a moment--yet in frequently defying and inviting the vengeance of banded Rocky Mountain cut-throats by shooting down their comrades and leaders, and never offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a man of peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity with what looked like the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was not _moral_ courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if moral courage is not the requisite quality, what could it have been that this stout-hearted Slade lacked?--this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered, urbane gentleman, who never hesitated to warn his most ruffianly enemies that he would kill them whenever or wherever he came across them next! I think it is a conundrum worth investigating. GENERAL SHERIDAN HUNTS THE BUFFALO DE B. R. KEIM From “On the Border with Sheridan’s Troopers.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Claxton, Remsen & Heffinger, Philadelphia.[25] To relieve the monotony of inactivity the Commanding General, much to the pleasure of a number of the officers of the staff and garrison at Fort Hays, proposed a “genuine” buffalo-hunt. The diversion was also in part out of compliment to Captain Merryman, of the U. S. revenue cutter M’Culloch, then on a visit to headquarters. A bright day in October was fixed for the sport. Accordingly at an early hour the horses were sent to the railroad and put on the cars. Leaving Hays City we ran up the track, a distance of thirty miles. Here, by means of a gangplank, the horses were led out of the cars and saddled by the orderlies. Leaving the guard the General had brought with him to protect the train, we mounted and “lit out,” as rapid locomotion is called in that locality. Each person wore a brace of pistols for close work, and, carried a breech-loading rifle to use at greater distance.